But that didn’t stop me from dreaming up new and unconventional ways to torture myself over trim.

This time around, I saved myself a significant chunk of time and labor by buying stock millwork from Home Depot.

But then, my FDBF kicked in.

“What is FDBF” you say? I’m glad you asked. I always appreciate the opportunity to raise public awareness about this very serious disorder. You see, I suffer from a condition that Chris has aptly labeled “Frequent Debilitating Brain Farts.”

“Brain Farts” refer to the more or less inexplicable decisions one might make even after demonstrating awareness that the aforementioned decision is against one’s best interests. “Debilitating” because these decisions often bring a project to a halt while one debates how much extra time and/or money one is willing to throw at correcting the original brain fart, all while fighting the sneaking suspicion that any solution one comes up with could very well be another brain fart that will cost even more time and/or money. “Frequent” is pretty self-explanatory. Case in point: I’ve now written 7 posts about the nursery, 5 of which describe indefensible decisions that resulted in a lot of unnecessary extra work. EVERYTHING I DO IN THERE IS WRONG.

And now that you are aware of FDBF, it will not surprise you to know that instead of simply installing the stock millwork from Home Depot as is, I decided to customize it — thereby adding a week’s worth of work to the project.

I could try to justify my decision, but why? FDBF, yo. I am not in control of my faculties. My brain was telling me that I could not live with 5-1/4″ wide casings in the nursery, when the original casings in the house are 4-1/2″ wide. Next thing I knew, I was standing at the table saw, ripping the stock casings apart and removing three-quarters of an inch from the middle of each one.

And then I had to glue the pieces back together, which required making a special clamping jig that could hold the pieces together while the glue dried.

And then I had to caulk the seam, because cheap casing and tablesaws don’t always mix perfectly. And then I had to prime the caulked seam. And only THEN was I back to what should have been the starting point of this project: painting the trim.

Two coats of paint took one day. Installation took two half-days…or at least it would have, and the Great Millwork Saga of 2015 would have ended there, IF I HAD ORDERED ENOUGH CASING TO FINISH THE JOB.

That’s right. After all that, I discovered that I had experienced yet another brain fart: I only ordered enough casing to cover the actual lineal footage, forgetting to factor in the necessity for unbroken runs. Translation: In order to finish installing the casing, I need two 40-inch-long pieces. I have a little over 80 inches of casing left — but the longest piece is only 18 inches long.

The moral of the story: I am one 8-foot board away from finishing this project. I had to order that one board online, because Home Depot doesn’t carry this particular casing in-store. I am waiting for that one board to arrive, at which point I will have to cut it apart, glue it back together, caulk, prime, and paint it…a process that takes about a week whether you have one board or 10 boards.

Total time wasted by this double-dose of FDBF? An estimated 3 weeks. Final numbers unavailable due to the project being unfinished at the time of this writing.

Comments

Were you aware that FDBF is complicated by pregnancy? Therefore, every episode of FDBF that occurred while working on the nursery is completely not your fault. Fingers crossed that the rest of the millwork gets completed before baby arrives without any further FDBF episodes!

Unfortunately for you, I think we were separated at birth. If there’s a way to take a relatively simple thing and overthink it, come up with a genius idea to make it impossible, and also something one absolutely must do, I will achieve it.

If you were me exactly, the remaining tiny bit of this project would remain undone for at least three years. My whole house is full of nearly completed projects.